


This Cursed Breath

by Katyakora



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Banshee!Laurel, F/M, Fix-It, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Character Death, siren!Cisco
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 10:10:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8746105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katyakora/pseuds/Katyakora
Summary: It was alright for Dante, who couldn’t even whistle in tune, it was clear that the curse had skipped him just as it had skipped their mother. But for Cisco, there wasn’t really any doubt. He’d had a beautiful voice as a child and an almost compulsive love of singing. Cisco had always taken more after his mother than his father, and it did tend to skip generations. Cisco didn’t, couldn’t, believe it at first. This had to be some kind of practical joke. But then his mother did something she had never done before in his life.
She asked him to sing.
Cisco would spend years suppressing the power he was cursed with, until temptation in the form of a beautiful, crime-fighting lawyer forced him to look at his curse under a different light.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this during the break between seasons because I have Blackvibe feelings.   
> The songs are in the end notes but if you have songs you like that you think fit better, that works too.

From a young age the Ramon children were discouraged from singing, especially in public. This was fine with Dante, who could barely carry a tune but had a gift on the piano. Unfortunately, poor little Cisco had already developed a deep love of song, had a habit of humming when he did his chores and belting out his favourite disney songs when left alone to play. He knew he was good at it too, because all his teachers told him so. Unfortunately, one of them also felt inclined to tell his parents so. They changed schools after that, and his parents made sure to drill into Cisco’s head that singing was bad. Again and again, he asked why, why was singing so terrible? All they ever said was that something bad might happen.

 

The night before Cisco’s fourteenth birthday, his mother quietly knocked at his door after he was supposed to be asleep (his flashlight and comics were hastily hidden). He would never forget the look on her face as she slipped into his room, the look of despair and acceptance chilling him as she sat next to him and told him to listen carefully. She told him that she knew he sang softly to himself when he practised on his guitar in the garden. He tensed, having thought the instrument had been loud enough to mask his quiet voice, but she said she knew because every time he did their neighbours would wander outside and stare at the fence until he stopped.

 

That night, his mother told him that her family was cursed.

 

It was alright for Dante, who couldn’t even whistle in tune, it was clear that the curse had skipped him just as it had skipped their mother. But for Cisco, there wasn’t really any doubt. He’d had a beautiful voice as a child and an almost compulsive love of singing. Cisco had always taken more after his mother than his father, and it did tend to skip generations. Cisco didn’t, couldn’t, believe it at first. This had to be some kind of practical joke. But then his mother did something she had never done before in his life.

 

She asked him to sing. Just once. No words, she insisted, just a meaningless collection of notes. Confused, Cisco played along, picking a tune at random. Then, his mother led him to the window and opened it.

 

From his second floor window, Cisco saw the back neighbour’s dog lift its head in his direction, moving curiously towards him until the fence blocked its way. After a few moments, the back doors of the neighbours either side of them swung open, the elderly couple to their left and the young family to their right just wandering outside, slow and vacant, their eyes unseeing as they stopped at the fence to stare in his direction. He faltered in shock, his voice coming to a stuttering stop and his neighbours all blinked, looking around in confusion. His mother nudged him and told him to keep singing. As soon as he did, the vacant trance returned, and now the back neighbours wandered out to join their dog. Cisco stopped again, a trembling hand covering his mouth. He faced his mother with wide, disbelieving eyes.

 

“Was that...was that because of me?”

 

Her eyes were bright with unshed tears as she nodded, telling him his voice was just as strong as they had feared. It would only grow more beautiful, and more powerful, as he became a man.

 

“But I don’t understand. Is this really so bad?”

 

“To strip a person of their free will? To enslave them, to violate their minds, their bodies? How is that not a terrible thing?”

 

Cisco vomited into his trashcan when the full implications of his mother’s words, of what he could do, finally hit him. His mother held back his hair and rubbed his back soothingly, telling him not to worry, he would manage. Those of his blood would remain immune to his voice, regardless of whether they carried the curse or not. He would have to go and stay with his grand aunt for a while, the last member of their family to receive the curse. There he could learn control, how to handle the compulsion to sing and how to keep his curse from bleeding into his speaking voice.

 

Everything changed after that night. The summers he spent with his aunt were surprisingly enjoyable, as he was able to sing to his heart’s content at her remote farmhouse under the guise of practicing her lessons. But when he returned, he found that his mother’s side of the family treated him differently. His blood relatives looked at him with pity and those who had married into the family avoided him entirely. His parents distanced themselves too, his mother unable to hide her sorrow and guilt whenever she met his eyes. His father just didn’t seem to know what he should do. It was easier for them to focus on perfect Dante, whose only abnormality was his skill. Cisco tried to draw attention away from his curse. He excelled in the sciences, got scholarships to prestigious schools, let his guitar gather dust and stayed as far away from music as possible, hoping everyone would forget. But nothing helped. He was the broken child, the cursed one.

 

Dante was the only one who still treated him the same. If anything, his brother seemed to spend more time around him, his teasing still harsh, but he always smiled during their bickering. As much as Cisco disliked the way his brother treated him, he did appreciate that Dante only treated him as a brother, not something damaged. He also seemed to have a knack for knowing when Cisco’s strength was waning, when the need to sing threatened to burst out of him. On these days, he would practice at home, rather than in the school music room, letting Cisco sit next to him and sing along until their parents came home. Dante was the only person Cisco ever sang in front of anymore.

 

When he moved out of home, the first thing Cisco did was soundproof his room. It wasn’t quite the same when he sang without someone listening, but it was enough to take the edge off, enough that he only needed to drop in on Dante a few times a year. Dante always complained about Cisco showing up unannounced, but he also always was conveniently about to practice whenever his brother knocked on his door. They never talked about the fact that Cisco needed this, nor that Dante would always, no matter what, give him an excuse to sing.

 

His aunt had warned him during his first stay that when the curse manifested fully, he would start to notice strange things. Their family wasn’t the only one with a curse, she’d told him, weren’t the only ones with the magic of old slumbering in their veins. Her advice had been to avoid them; you never knew just what you might be getting involved with. Mostly, Cisco heeded her. However, he did end up befriending a girl in his dorm who had feathers when no one was looking. From her, he gained a more comprehensive education regarding the others and learned how to read the shifts and shimmers in a person’s form to know what kind of magic lay underneath. She also inspired him to study his own curse, to do more than just suppress it but seek to understand it.

 

Of all the others he’d seen, she was the only one who got close to him. The others avoided him, afraid of the power in his voice just as his family had been. It was painful for him to realise he was an outsider even among the others. But he moved on, built a life and a career, occasionally experimenting with tones and recordings of his voice, but otherwise his existence was as normal as he could make it.

 

The particle accelerator exploded and Cisco’s quiet life got tossed. Before he knew it, he was friends with superheroes and using his skills to save the day on a regular basis. Most of it was great, apart from the danger, because with great danger came great temptation. 

 

Watching his brother writhe on the floor in pain, it was all Cisco could do to keep the from singing, from compelling Snart to turn that gun on himself so he could feel exactly what he’d done to Dante. Despite their differences over the years, Dante had always been there for him when Cisco needed him, and now Cisco felt like he was abandoning him in his time of need. The words were right there on the tip of his tongue, a tune already half-formed in his mind. But Cisco couldn’t do it, couldn’t let himself do that to another, not even to someone who had tortured his brother. He made his choice, and was absolutely prepared to face the consequences. But he was forgiven, and Dante even asked him to bring his guitar out when they got home so that there would still be music in the house while his fingers healed.

 

The most unexpected temptation came in the form of a beautiful ADA fighting crime in Starling City. He’d seen it the moment they met, recognised the shifting shadows no one else could see. There was magic sleeping in her blood, ancient and powerful. Cisco had no idea why it hadn’t manifested, but when she asked him to modify her sonic weapons, he couldn’t resist interfering. It wasn’t harmful, he reasoned, he had no desire for her to suffer the way he had suffered. But he also didn’t want her out there risking her life without every possible tool at her disposal. So he built her a choker, incorporating recordings from the vibrations of his own voicebox, using his power to activate hers, just a little. Just enough so that when she wore that choker, her scream held some of the might of her kind.

 

She was wearing that choker when Damien Darhk fatally stabbed her.

 

That knowledge nagged at him in the back of his mind for days, a nugget of significance that he just couldn’t put his finger. He woke one night with a shout, finally understanding why he couldn’t get that detail out of his head. The magic he’d felt in her, that he’d tapped into, was that of one of Death’s harbingers. No creature of death would fall to a mundane physical wound. There was a chance, just a chance, that she wasn’t truly dead, but stuck between. If that was true...the Black Canary still might have a chance.

 

But he had to be sure first. If he was right, what he intended to do was far more than utilise a few harmless recordings. He wasn’t willing to unleash his voice and violate every oath he’d ever sworn, to desecrate the grave of a beloved friend, not unless he was positive it was possible. First, he called his aunt and asked her to recount some old stories, the tales that said they had once been able to do more with their voices than simply entrance. Then, he called his old college friend and asked her everything she knew about creatures of death and, more importantly, the rules and circumstances around their deaths and manifestations. Armed with their knowledge and all the tricks he’d taught himself studying his curse over the years, Cisco made the long trip to Star City.

 

It was late, deep in twilight, by the time he reached the cemetery. And yet, the graveyard was not as empty as he had hoped. A petite blonde woman knelt before the very grave he had come to see. He didn’t need to see her face to know he was in the presence of the White Canary. The shadows around her twisted and writhed, drawn to the grave and yet shying away from Sara, almost as though they were afraid to touch her. Cisco frowned as he approached. The presence of the shadows confirmed his theory about Laurel, but the way they reacted to Sara was a conundrum, although one he would have to consider another day. He came to a stop at her side and her red-rimmed eyes met his.

 

“You must be Sara. I’m Cisco Ramon.”

 

“Uh, yeah.” The defensive tension left her shoulders. “She, uh, she mentioned you. Apparently, you made my suit?”

 

“Yeah. How’s that working out for you, by the way? No issues with chafing, or anything?”

 

“No, no chafing, it’s perfect.” She smiled wryly. “And I really like the jacket.”

 

“Awesome. You know, adding the jacket was actually Laurel’s idea. Didn’t want you getting cold.”

 

“Yeah, she was always looking out for me.” They fell into silence, the pair of them simply gazing at the tombstone.

 

“Can I ask you a personal question?” Cisco hesitantly ventured after a time. “Like, a real, super personal, ‘I probably deserve to get smacked for even asking’ kind of question?”

 

Sara frowned and rose to her feet. “You can ask. No guarantee I’ll answer. Or that I won’t smack you,” she allowed, regarding him with a curious eyebrow in an otherwise guarded expression.

 

“Fair.” He took a deep breath, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his hoodie. “Do you...remember what it was like? When your body first came out of the pit?”

 

“You mean...before I got my soul back?”

 

He nodded. She stared hard at him for a long moment, making him fidget in discomfort and apprehension.

 

“Yes and no.”

 

“What does that mean?” Immediately, he regretted the thoughtless question, but the words were already out.

 

“I remember a feeling. And a terrible, horrible need. But I don’t know if what I think I remember is what actually happened because the memories are all so...warped. So yeah, yes and no.”

 

Cisco nodded at her answer, several theories slotting together in his head. “Do you think she’d want to come back?” His voice was soft, practically a whisper, but the assassin easily caught the question.

 

“What do you mean? You got a lazarus pit in your back pocket?” Her tone tried for  blasé , but the tiny, fragile note of hope he heard underneath spurred his resolve.

 

“No. But you never got asked. I mean, I’m assuming you’re happy to be alive now, but at the time, nobody asked you if you  **wanted** to come back. Nobody asked you if you were prepared to pay the price that came with it. I was just thinking...do you think Laurel would want to come back, if we asked? Even if it came with a price tag?”

 

Sara seemed a little dumbstruck by his words, especially the part about her. Slowly, her lips pursed and her gaze turned shrewd. 

 

“That’s a strange thing to ask.”

 

He simply shrugged. “The world we live in, it’s a question I’ve been asking myself about a lot of people.” 

 

The assassin’s gaze softened in understanding.

 

“I think...I think Laurel lived to fight for what was right. No matter the cost.”

 

Cisco just nodded again. He’d thought something similar, but was more confident with the affirmation from someone Laurel had been close to. They stood together at the grave until Sara said her goodbyes and quietly left. As soon as she did, the shadows rushed to envelope Laurel’s grave, pressing into the grass as though fighting to reach what lay beneath. It was heartening to see, a visual reminder that potent magic still lay dormant just below the surface. Cisco just hoped his voice would be enough to awaken it.

 

The first song he tried was a soft, sweet lullaby of healing, but the slowly swirling shadows didn’t so much as twitch. He changed tactics, singing instead a dirge to Death itself, to the same result. Disheartened, but not willing to give up, he tried the very next song to pop into his head, not expecting much. It was a mournful ballad to fighting for survival, to rising despite the odds, and to his surprise, it got a reaction. It felt like there was a charge in the air and all the shadows stilled, as though waiting for something. Cisco felt a thrum of power go through him, his song finally resonating with the force he was trying to reach.  Grinning, he slipped straight into the next song, another ode to fighting and surviving. More shadows gathered, rising around him in great smoky pillars. The notes of this song were higher, harder to hit, and he let his voice rise to reach them. He hadn’t let himself belt out a song since he was a child, but now he let his magic run free, fueling the shadows, for her. The feeling of finally letting go was indescribable, almost intoxicating as Cisco was overwhelmed by the sweet release of freedom. The thrumming in his blood grew like an accompaniment to his song and he could have sworn the shadows now shook with the same frequency.

 

The song ended and he could feel the gathered energy as a tangible presence around him, just waiting to be tipped over the precipice. With a deep breath, trembling with anticipation and power, he began his final song. He called for her to transform and rise, to continue fighting through the madness and chaos. The thrum was in his very bones now, in his soul, the shadows pulsing to this heavy beat only he could hear. He was lost in a sea of shadows as he hit the crescendo, unaware that his eyes now glowed bright like twin moons as his final cry to rise sent the shadows crashing down into the grave. Cisco could feel the powers shift as the two magics resonated together to form a bridge for the shadows to travel down, to grant access to what had lain dormant for so long.

  
There was a long beat of silence in the shadow’s wake, the night suddenly feeling to bright. And then the earth exploded at his feet. A piercing scream sent a mound of earth up into the air, but Cisco ignored the clumps of dirt raining down on him as he scrambled towards the newly formed hole. He reached down to desperately clutch at the hands clawing upward. Grunting, coughing and very much breathing, Laurel Lance was dragged out of her grave and into the moonlight.

**Author's Note:**

> Songs in order are:  
> Healing Incantation - Mandy Moore (from Tangled)  
> O Death - Jen Titus  
> The Fighter - In This Moment  
> Alive - Sia  
> RISE - Superfruit (cover of Katy Perry)


End file.
